Monday, 9 June 2008

Fun Monday #26

Our host for this week's Fun Monday is Molly from Return of the White Robin and our assignment is this:

For your assignment tell us about a happy memory from your childhood. If you have pictures, please show us your pictures.

Hmmm...happy childhood memories. I have few recollections of my childhood and I think that is to do with being an only child. Himself has 7 siblings to bounce memories off and they all seem to be able to remember things that happened when they were younger. Probably because they each have other people who experienced the same things to talk to about them and that helps either keep the memories fresh or to jog memories.

My childhood was not blissfully happy. My parents divorced when I was 9 and there was a battle royal for custody of me. A battle my father only wanted to win because he couldn't bear to lose any argument. Don't get me wrong, I wasn't beaten or abused or neglected in any way. My mother loved me and I'm sure my father did in his own way too. But if I tell you my earliest memory is of me being bundled into a car by my mother and her driving to some remote place where she sat and cried her heart out, that will give you a taster of how it was in our house. I later put two and two together and was able to work out that that was the occasion when my mother found out about my father's first affair. At least, I assume it was his first. It certainly wasn't his last.

But I do have distant memories of staying with my cousins on their farm and being allowed to run free and wild as long as we were home for dinner. We climbed walls, picked gooseberries, ran with the sheep, stacked bales of hay in the barn then climbed them and jumped off them, we dared each other to go into the field where the bull lived and helped out with the sheep dipping and sheering.

It was idyllic and looking back now those were amongst the happiest and most carefree days of my life. I wish life could be so carefree now.

22 comments:

OH, this hurts my chest...my girls were about 16 and 9 when I divorced their dad. I know they carry that pain with them today. Hopefully, we all grew from a very bad experience. Sometimes it seems that the negative overpowers the positive.

I also was an only child but never missed siblings I had enough friends. My parents didn't divorce but were too much occupied with themselves. So really happy memories I don't remember. Or I was always happy or always sad ! My life later is much more filled with memories !

I hear what you're saying. aoj. I often wonder which does the most harm--when parents stay together for some wrong reason or just go ahead and divorce. My parents fought which was so scary for a child to be around. Perhaps it would have been better to grow up with just one of them.

Thank goodness for farms and kids being allowed to visit. I, too, have great memories of spending summers with my aunt, uncle and cousins. We did the same things you did except for the sheep.

I think grandpa's farm helped out a lot of kids. Great to be there during the summer time. My grandkids will not have a farm to come to. However, my back yard is green and there is a field across the street.

Your thoughts touched me. I wish your childhood could have been sweeter. I know I had friends in jr. & sr. high school that had sad childhoods but I didn't know about it until I was an adult and I wish I had-- maybe I could have helped.Hope you have a good week.Judy

The farm sounds fabulous. Glad you had those memories to offset the sad ones. My parents did not divorce but I did and the hurt touches everyone no matter how it's done. That's probably part of the reason you seem to have learned how to take care of yourself?

I divorced my childer's father after years of abuse. The turning point came when he refused to let me enter my house, hit me & I picked my just 5 yr old up off a concrete step with her face bleeding. Annon couldn't eat or speak for 2 days. The elder girl suffered badly at his hands because he wanted her to be a child genius & as she was only a girl he could do what he liked with her ~ so much came out afterwards, including that he'd been a member of staff at a St. John Ambulance youth camp she attended & she was picked off the field covered in bruises. She wouldn't testify against him & there were no other witnesses, but the medical officer knew. Annon witnessed nearly every attack on me & her brother has knee problems after being beaten with a broom handle. My girls won't have anything to do with their father ~ their choice ~ but Llyw swings between blaming me for the break up & blaming me for not getting us all out sooner. He lives in fear of turning into his father. His father never wanted him (he was a boy) & so, as he didn't want to move with us to Ireland he was taken in eventually by a marvellous friend of mine who'd experienced the self same thing from his wife, who then took his childer away to hurt him.

I hope that my childer can salvage some happy memories from their childhood